The Frailty of Genius
by ScarletTigress
Summary: Sherlock and his violin are the doctor's own private distraction, especially if it is a seduction, in which case it certainly wouldn't be anything someone should share. A gift fic for a very dear friend. Rated for language and innuendo. One Shot.


The Frailty of Genius

There is something to be said for cohabitation with someone who plays devastatingly beautiful music on his violin whenever he's had the misfortune to experience an emotion that might possibly be human. Usually the music is nice, certainly preferable to indignant complaints of being bored or John breathing too loudly or the weather being too damn cold for any decent murders. Sherlock says that he plays when he's got some problem or other between his teeth and then the music sounds sharp, querying, but still something in the background that can be shut out and slept through. Half the time, John falls asleep to Sherlock's mental turmoil without even thinking about it, inured to the violin as he once was to the sound of distant explosions. The man always plays when he's thinking, or depressed about something, which he vehemently denies since anguish is one of those human things Sherlock Holmes just doesn't do. Still, this time…this time the texture of the music does not _sound_ the _same,_ it's distinctly different and John can't shake the suspicion that it isn't only because of the notes. The violin doesn't sound like weeping or hunting or the shattering of colossi as it usually would, but like something hotter, more violent. There's a patience, a richness in the notes that transcends the expression of anything cognitive and instead describes an emotion that is deeper, darker and infinitely more luscious.

Whenever he's asked about it, Sherlock just snaps that the music is about the weather, which being bitterly cold has driven most of London's crime into hiding. John knew that it was bullshit, but there's no way argue with something like a violin and arguing with Sherlock is equally worthless. Still, John can sense the harmony of it, feel it flowing in his blood and surging in his lungs, and it does _not_ feel like the weather. Sherlock's melody is warm, cloying, frustrated; certainly not dull or freezing. At any rate, the weather and its convenient excuses will last for another two weeks by Sherlock's estimation, likely to be followed by a nice dry spell in which, hopefully, people will see fit to kill each other. Two weeks of exquisite torture, unless Sherlock is wrong, which is an eventuality with the same probability as being struck fifteen times by lightning.

John would never be conceited enough to consider himself a connoisseur, of the violin or much of anything else, but he doesn't feel the bone deep chill of a London winter in that music. No, there is no grey or dreary or freezing in that violin, nothing he could even begin to describe as cold and boring the way the music should be given Sherlock's apparent mood. To be truthful, it doesn't even really sound like violin music anymore so much as a conversation in another language that John only speaks in passing. Even then, even only in passing, it sounds more than anything like a _seduction_. The worst part is not, ironically, that John may be losing his mind but that he is no longer sure whether or the imagined invitation is an ineffective one.

The music flows, like water through levies broken in a hurricane, into every part of 221 Baker Street and John can't seem to block it out anymore. Sherlock's music has worked its way into the floors, into the flickering of the bathroom lights and into the minute sounds of John's own tread. He walks to Sherlock's torment, he showers to the tune of the man's hunger, he stirs milk into his tea with the rhythm of his friend's confusion. The music was becoming more than a sound, more than a coping mechanism for damn sure, and Dr. John Watson wondered if he is slowly being inducted into some form of insanity.

His psychologist would have a Freudian field day if she only knew, but this is one thing that John has no interest in discussing with the shrink or anyone else. Sherlock and his violin are the doctor's own private distraction, especially if it _was _a seduction, in which case it certainly wouldn't be anything someone should share. The reality of such a thing would mean that Sherlock wasn't playing just to play, not for his own ears and purposes, but _for_ John. It would mean that he had an intended audience for this most recent piece of artistic psychosis, a _target_. John sighed. A bit of holiday would be simple enough, but the damning thing of it was that he doesn't even need to be actively listening to it _anymore_. The music is still there, lurking in his memory when he walks to the grocer or to the bank, in the irate little tapping of his psychologist's pen on the paper. It's inescapable, this symphony, and John can feel it in his teeth late at night and in his bones when he does push-ups on the floor of his room.

Biting his lip, the doctor closed his eyes and counted. Sherlock was playing downstairs and had been for the past 32 hours, but another cold shower would have been both uncomfortable and suspicious. Sighing, John stood and stomped down the stairs, purposefully out of sync with the rhythm of the violin's frantic sensuality.

"We're out of milk." John said, putting his hands into his pockets and pointedly staring at Sherlock's back.

"I don't give a bloody fuck." Sherlock whispered darkly.

"Fine then, I'll just be out for some more. Back in a few." The doctor replied briskly.

"Cigarettes too."

"Put down the damn violin and get them yourself."

"Wanker." Sherlock grumbled and continued to play.

At least Sherlock was still talking, which was a bonus, sort of, when he managed to be decently civil. John was still rather sick of the snappish comments and incomprehensible grumbling about needing cigarettes since a little cold spell clearly counted as cause for a nicotine relapse. The violin sang, high and full like a woman's voice, shrieking like a cry of completion and John suddenly had no recollection where the fuck he put had his house keys. No normal violin could sound like that. A mere breath away from outright cursing, John hunted through the couch and side tables, but the keys were nowhere to be found. There was simply no logical way he could describe the difference, no reason for Sherlock's little habit to be affecting him all of a sudden, but the doctor was beginning to feel desperate anyway.

"Did you take my keys?" John huffed, hands balled into fists.

"No." Sherlock said snappishly. The violin chuckled languidly.

"Well then do you know where in the bloody hell they are?" John snapped.

"Sent them to Lestrade." Sherlock sighed irately even as the violin purred.

"What?! Why?"

"For fun…"

"Fun?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes fun, and as revenge for taking my skull in his last ridiculous little raid, bloody insufferable ass. I'm bored…" The violin sighs, like a girl on a summer day and John's teeth rang with it.

"Well then, give me _your_ keys." John demanded with a huff.

"In my pocket." Sherlock said, the smile unmistakable in his voice and also in the trilling notes.

"Why do you have your damn house keys in the pocket of your pajama pants?" John hissed, feeling cornered and also inexplicably aroused.

"Expediency." Sherlock replied tonelessly and the violin moaned again in helpless passion.

"Fine. Whatever. I've no need to pat you down in your undergarments. I'll just have Mrs. Hudson let me in." John growled, grabbing for his jacket.

"As you like. You'll be waiting a while…"

"What?"

"She's on holiday." Sherlock huffed as the violin roars its victory. What the hell kind of violin can roar anyway?

"I don't really want milk anyway. I'm starting a diet." John hissed, throwing his jacket onto the couch viciously.

"No? Pity, since there's probably still cream, perhaps you should try that…"

"Perhaps I'd be _able_ to go shopping if you hadn't decided to nick _my _damn keys!" He snarled.

"No need to be churlish, I'm sure Lestrade will return them in a day or so, when he decides to rummage through my experiments again." Sherlock said, sawing hard against the strings in a subtle show of frustration.

"Yeah, right, of course…" John grumbled and stomped back up to his room.

OoOoOoO

He woke in a cold sweat to the agonized wailing of Sherlock's violin, feeling groggy and a bit disoriented, muscles stiff and sore beneath the rough cotton of his bedding. The tender flesh of his penis was hard and sensitive beneath his flannel pants, burning the way it had when John was a teenager and the mere thought of Synthia Dorchester sent his body into adolescent fits. He closed his eyes, listening to the thunder of his own heartbeat, pounding in perfect counterpoint to Sherlock's violin, of course. The doctor could not decide if he was aroused because of the violin or because of the dream he had been having and either way he was a nutter for having a problem like this in the first place. With something almost like a whimper, John thought about cricket and Lestrade in lacy stockings and root vegetables until his aching body decided to deflate and allow him to breathe. Not that anything like self-control mattered against the erotic onslaught of a maddened genius with a demonic violin. John could master the flesh and will away the annoyance of an erection, he _was_ an adult, but the music…fuck…the _music_ remained_._ That at least was not a dream though it was certainly hard to know one way or another anymore. The soulful vibrato of the cursed instrument rang through the floor boards of his bedroom as clear as day, even more compelling than it had been before.

No, no dream, a nightmare perhaps. Sherlock was still playing and the music was sweet and heavy like a lover's gasp and affecting him the same way against all logic and common sense. He could not hide from it, even in sleep. No matter what this newest little experiment actually was, he had become an unwilling victim to its power, chained to the melody as surely as if Sherlock had tied him to the bed. John knew without a doubt that Sherlock could not possibly know, at least not in a visceral sense, how it was making him feel and so there was no need to be angry.

Anger was pointless and so was stomping downstairs to slap Sherlock in the face for toying with something so cruel and dangerous only to be mocked for reacting at all. Deductive geniuses of the brand residing on Baker street might know the mechanics of intimacy and even concoct clever plots to seduce their mates with violin music for no other reason than because they were bored, but Sherlock hadn't the first clue about how such a thing might _feel_. If anything even remotely like sex ever happened to Sherlock he would probably be terrified, which would be horrible, or curious which might be even worse. John Watson sighed and clenched his hands into fists. He was trapped in this, dammit! Soon the problem would not be that he was locked inside this damn apartment with Sherlock, but that Sherlock had locked himself in here with _him_. It was positively unbearable. John wondered if Lestrade would think it too terribly peculiar if he called at 3 a.m. and begged him to bring over his house keys so that he could flee shamelessly into the night. Given their past dealings the inspector probably wouldn't and so the question became whether John really wanted to leave or not.

The night was deep, cold, and Sherlock's violin was singing huskily and low of things far warmer and more appealing than London winters. In the music John could practically taste the wanton tang of arousal, something that Sherlock certainly never expressed with his voice or body for anyone, ever. And who, John wondered, would he do this for anyway, if not nor him? Sherlock had no friends. Sherlock had no lovers. John was the only audience for this little symphony of sex unconsummated and so he could only assume that the damn thing had been written for him. Perhaps the bloody madmen had finally managed to kindle some serotype of bizarre, misplaced erotic emotion for him. No, not emotion, never _that,_ godforbid! Sherlock's motivation was more of an impulse probably…An impulse to play violin music that would fit nicely into deviant pornography and drive them both batty.

Being as how John suspected he was the first person to ever withstand Sherlock for any appreciable length of time, if the man was going to fall for anyone he supposed it would have to be for him. It all made a rather creepy kind of sense, at least at 3 in the morning and half asleep, John mused ruefully. He could entertain the notion as an intellectual exercise if nothing else, but the doctor was not yet mad enough to think that something like human passion would ever be feasible with Sherlock.

Assuming he wasn't just insane, which was quite a stretch frankly, and Sherlock was expressing some kind of…well…something, there was _nothing_ he could do about it. Even action as simple as a touch, a caress with anything other than just clinical annoyance in it, would be more than Sherlock had ever tolerated in his entire life. For all he knew the man was a virgin, though he certainly didn't fucking _play_ like one, and perhaps to Sherlock the music and the idea of carnality were all one and the same thing anyway. Perhaps they had been making ecstatic, riotous love for the past three days in his estimation and John was the only one having a bad lay. Still, John toyed with the idea, something idle to put with the melody for the sake of his sanity, and it _was_ appealing.

He thought about his best mate's dark hair, the curls heavy and damp with sweat, clinging to the angle of his nose just so. John had never had much spark for men, but there was something beyond male or female in the idea of dark mahogany hair and pale skin, something lovely for its own sake. Yes, that might be beautiful if the lighting was soft and the shadows just right, if Sherlock could manage to keep quiet for once. Then there would be his strange aquamarine eyes, dilated in the low late and probably studying everything, counting respirations or heartbeats. The right one had a pupil like a key-hole, coloboma it was called, usually a genetic deformity that in Sherlock's case only made people want to look twice. John sighed softly, imagining it. He kept the thoughts vague; just contrast with a suggestion of motion as well, the fantasy undulating gently to the tune of the violin downstairs…

The violin sang and almost instantly the doctor was aroused once again, muscles tight and quivering with brutal ecstasy, biting his lip to cage the sound of his own voice within. The human voice would be an ugly thing in comparison to the violin anyway. He had to do something. Something had to be done. The situation had reached critical mass and he simply could not bear to go on with this any longer! With a muffled scream, John slammed his head back into his own headboard with frustration. All of it was likely just a game anyway, a game to fill the space left by murder, a willful distraction for an evil genius. John laughed. His life was so bloody ridiculous!

The music and the way he felt, it was all a game to Sherlock, it had to be! The idea was actually rather comforting, despite the quivering, sweaty mess he found himself in in the small hours of the morning. Comforting because games, at least games involving two people as this one did, could be _won_.

OoOoOoO

"Rather nice this little tune you've been playing." John said softly with a luxurious yawn.

The tone was for Sherlock, low and sultry, but the yawn was simply the product of being totally bloody exhausted. Regardless, the gesture still had the desired effect. The dark haired genius turned towards him with a jerk, glittering aquamarine eyes just large and open enough for Watson to know he had gotten what he wanted. The doctor smirked. Sherlock might know about how people think, but the man was totally unprepared when a person's behavior failed to match his own logic. John had been agitated before and now he gave every impression of being relaxed, warmed and aroused by the music instead of intimidated by it. The best part was that none of it was even a lie; simply deciding on how to settle this little tournament, formulating a strategy, had given him peace already. John had always been a man who found action far easier than the expectation of it.

"Yes, I suppose…" Sherlock murmured, frowning with concentration.

"More aggressive than usual, isn't it?" John remarked, raising a casual eyebrow.

"Music cannot be assigned emotions, John, only the interpretation carries any kind of…" Sherlock scoffed.

"Reminds me of hunting tigers in India." John said, neatly interrupting the lecture and licking his lips.

The gesture was not lost on Sherlock even if he obviously had no idea what to make of it, which would be the first time probably ever. Yes, John thought, you know what I'm feeling and why, but it's my _comfort_ with the sensation that baffles you. That he was performing a seduction of his own made the doctor faintly giddy, but instead of letting the knowledge of his own indiscretion turn into panic, he simply accepted the situation and focused on the feeling instead. Sherlock was still playing and the music was still as sensual as ever, the fine tremor of fear in it even more tempting than the melody had been with only passion and frustration. John tipped his head back, knowing he looked as warm as he felt and enjoying the hard blush that rose to his best mate's face at the display. Who knew Sherlock could blush?

"Tigers are an endangered species." Sherlock said pithily, eyes suddenly shuttered with uncertainty.

"Not everyone hunts animals with the intention to kill them." John said with a shrug, reclining back onto the couch.

Sherlock's eyes followed him, no doubt noticing the unusual state of undress and wondering at its meaning. John had chosen to go topless, despite the chill, because he knew that doing so would rattle Sherlock and also because he hadn't been cold in three days. The doctor sighed, stretching in a way that intentionally flexed his abdominal muscles.

"What does a person want with hunting if not to kill the prey?" Sherlock said, both faintly irritated and intrigued.

"That's the appeal to hunting tigers, you see, you can't really be sure who is the prey…" John whispered, holding Sherlock's eyes with his own.

"I suppose you are referring to yourself then?" Sherlock said, looking away, the violin still tucked under his chin and sighing softly.

"Am I?" John asked playfully, cocking his head.

"Don't be vague."

"I wouldn't dare, but I'm not actually sure what you're asking. Am I the tiger or the hunter and which, if you are asking me about this as a metaphor, _is_ the prey anyway?" John purred.

"I already _know_ that it must be a metaphor, if a rather dull one. Why else would you be lying there half-naked?" Sherlock huffed, even as the violin moaned in his hands.

"Expediency." John replied.

Sherlock nearly dropped the violin and the resulting shriek was almost enough to kill the moment entirely. Almost, but not quite, because even flustered and very nearly irate Sherlock was still the most enticing thing John Watson could ever recall hunting, tigers included. Carefully, Sherlock set the violin down and turned back to face him, his eyes hooded and full with too many feelings not the least of which was fear.

"You are being very odd." Sherlock accused, running a quivering hand through his hair.

"Hmm, it must be the weather." John sighed, passing a hand lazily over his own chest.

"Don't be ridiculous." Sherlock snapped.

"You stopped playing, what a pity..." John noted delicately, turning just enough to rest his elbows on the couch and face his friend fully.

The genius was a mess, fingers nervously hunting through the pockets of his robe for a cigarette that John had already assured would not be there, hair tousled and dirty. John rested his chin onto his knuckles and took a few moments to merely take in the scenery, enjoying Sherlock's discomfort almost as much as the music still playing in his thoughts. The dark haired man cursed and ran his hands through his hair in exasperation when neither a cigarette nor nicotine patches readily presented themselves. The game was on.

"I don't feel like playing, I feel like smoking." Sherlock hissed.

"No." John yawned and stretched again.

"Piss off."

"I might if you hadn't nicked my keys." John replied, biting the tip of his own thumb and smirking.

"How can you just _lie_ there looking so damned contented?!" Sherlock practically shouted.

"Am I bothering you?"

"Yes!"

"Would it bother you less if I was entirely naked?" John asked, quirking en eyebrow.

"What?" Sherlock asked, dumbstruck.

"Don't be so sensitive. Go ahead and play, I was enjoying it." John chastised with a throaty chuckle.

"I don't _want_ to play, I want…"

"…Something else?" John asked huskily, letting his eyes linger meaningfully on Sherlock's flushed face.

"Bloody hell." Sherlock gasped, wiping his hands over his face.

"Come here. Sit, sit and play the violin for me," The doctor crooned, smiling slow and hungrily.

"What makes you think that any of this is for _you_…" Sherlock balked.

"Most tigers know when they're being hunted." John replied, interrupting him again.

"You're insufferable…" Sherlock hissed even as he moved to sit on the edge of the couch, seemingly drawn to John's body like a snake to the flute of a charmer.

John smiled again and moved to run the edge of his thumb across fine line of Sherlock's cheekbone, thrilled at how the skin trembled beneath his touch. The skin was beautiful there, pale and surprisingly soft, warm beneath John's touch. The dark haired genius closed his eyes tightly, like a child afraid of the dark, but he didn't flinch or forcibly move John's hand away from his face. So, a seduction it is, John thought. The doctor curled his legs until he was practically wrapped around Sherlock, still stroking the pad of his thumb lightly over the other man's face.

"Of course it's for me, all of it's for me…" John whispered, moving to cup Sherlock's jaw gently in his fingers.

"A bit narcissistic…" Sherlock accused, even as he tipped his face into the touch.

"Not really, just the frailty of genius." John whispered as he ghosted his lips over the edge of Sherlock's jaw.

"The frailty of…genius…" Sherlock gasped, as John worked his fingers higher to cup his skull, lips as light as butterfly wings against his friend's quivering brow.

"Yes, that it needs an audience." Watson breathed and kissed him.


End file.
